Chennai: As Viacom18 is gearing up for the entry in to Tamil GEC market somewhere between mid January to April 2018 tentatively. It is either on the auspicious festive occasion of Pongal in Tamil Nadu that falls in mid Jan or it could be in mid April that marks the occasion of Tamil New Year. While it is preparing for the launch, the network has already set its foot strongly in distribution through its proxy channel NXT TV.
As a precursor of things reaching its launch stage, Viacom18 has got the Channel NXT and ZAP renamed as Colors Tamil and Colors Tamil HD respectively, from Information and Broadcasting Ministry, which were registered under Non-News category for airing content in Hindi or any regional languages.
The latest update from Information and broadcasting ministry shows that Viacom18 has changed the names during the month of October 2017. The permission for both NXT and ZAP was acquired in the name of Viacom18 on 6th April 2016. With this it is apparent that Viacom 18 plans to launch its Tamil GEC in both SD and HD format simultaneously.
Apparently, NXT is widely being distributed in all leading MSO in Chennai (except SCV) and across TN that includes the state owned Arasu Cable TV Network. The Channel is also available in all leading DTH Platforms under Tamil Entertainment Channel category. However, ZAP is not being distributed anywhere as the same falls under HD format that targets the premium audience.
Presently NXT is airing most of the dubbed content that was aired on Colors Hindi GEC and they are studying the viewing preferences of the audience to formulate a strategy for Tamil audience.
It may be noted that dubbed content aired on Colors Hindi was a big hit in Tamil GEC with shows like Balikavadu, Utharan, Naagin etc… managed to draw huge female following due to its production quality.
Viacom18 has withheld the Tamil dubbing rights of its popular shows Naagin 2 and Shani in-order to exploit the same in Colors Tamil while the Telugu and Malayalam dubbing rights were sold to Sun Network GECs Gemini TV and Surya TV.
